'Modest' teachers keep quiet about successes, finds report
Fri, 16 May 2008 01:00:00

Highly innovative schools give teachers confidence and encouragement to spread great ideas beyond their own classrooms so more pupils benefit. Without this encouragement, many teachers may be too modest to share these successes, finds a report out today. The report, Teachers as Innovative Professionals, was commissioned by the General Teaching Council for England and The Innovation Unit.

Teachers may not even realise that what they are doing is particularly innovative or successful – but just see it as part of ordinary teaching. 
 
However, the report also found that teachers saw innovation as the very point of the job as it produced interesting lessons which helped pupils learn. As such, innovation taps into a core skill of teaching and is intrinsic to teachers’ professionalism. Responding to individual pupils’ needs within the context of the curriculum and making subjects accessible is difficult, but a vital part of teachers improving their practice.
 
Teachers said innovating in this way increased their own job satisfaction. They were also motivated to be innovative if supported by peers and managers.
 
Teachers as Innovative Professionals, which drew on telephone interviews with teachers, in-depth visits to schools and a literature review, outlines the barriers to innovation and solutions to overcoming them. The research was carried out to follow up results in the GTC Annual Survey of Teachers 2006, which found that 84% of teachers believe they have the opportunity to innovate in the classroom.
 
The overwhelming requirement for innovation in teaching is strong school leadership. The whole-school ethos made a huge difference to teachers’ willingness to innovate and to share their ideas. Particularly innovative schools tended to have formal structures in place for teachers to do this.
 
As innovation always brings an element of risk, teachers need to feel they have the encouragement to innovate and the support to manage the risk. In addition, they need to be given the opportunities to talk and to share practice.
 
Really innovative schools involved pupils in developing, testing, evaluating and sharing ideas to an extent that innovation was almost a ‘co-production’ between staff and pupils.
 
One school, used as a ‘Case Study School’ in the report, Halton High School in Runcorn, Cheshire, saw a boost in exam results, attendance and morale, as a result of employing a more innovative approach.

For a full copy of the report seee our programme of GTC commissioned research.